February 10-16, 2005

dance

They've Got the Beat

by Janet Anderson

It was all in the beat and in the body. That was the connection among Germaine Ingram's sound-based dance, Kariamu & Company's hypnotic rhythms and rolling movements, even Eleone Dance Theatre's mix of jazz dance and urban aggro.

Combine a great tap dancer, a tradition-based African performance group and a spunky modern dance outfit celebrating multicultural themes, and you've got one of the best DanceBoom! programs imaginable.

The only word to describe Germaine Ingram's performance is choice. Everything about Ingram's tap presentation was nuanced, seasoned and beautifully presented. The lady isn't just a jazz tap artist, she's got a cool jazz voice, which she used to great effect singing Nina Simone songs while subtly accompanying herself with the sound of her taps. She interacted and improvised with four excellent jazz musicians, two wonderful tappers and marvelous footage from the oral history project documenting Philadelphia's tap dance heritage.

In a different but equally compelling mood was Kariamu & Company. Traditions set the house ablaze with ferocious African-based movement and sound. It was exuberant, proud, even mournful — but never hokey. Sankofa-Ja! with F. Nii Yartey's choreography celebrated the ancestral rhythms connecting Ghana and Jamaica. The dancers came onstage to the sound of ocean waves; huddled together, they expressed fear as well as hope, eventually walking resignedly off into bondage. Kariamu Welsh, a much-honored Temple prof as well as company founder, contributed Museum Piece, which explored the objectification of the African, from auction block to yard art. Three sensational drummers accompanied the dance. A dancer brought Kariamu's museum piece to life as a young girl, briefly let go to join in the freedom and frenzy of straw-skirted and straw-collared dancers but eventually tucked safely back onto her museum pedestal.

Eleone Dance Theatre closed things out with three jazzy modern dances that owed as much to Lester Horton and Alvin Ailey (and even our own Philadanco) as to more ancient traditions. Nevertheless, what Eleone does, it does very well. They showed their stuff in three different moods. Dancing to Bobby McFerrin's Sweet as The Morning's Flow, they performed a moody jazz dance, very Ailey in feeling. Then, whoosh, the stage filled with mist, and we're traveling on the Highway (by Trinitee 5-7) to heaven, very much in gospel mode. Cleverly, Eleone closed with the raucous sounds of the great James Brown in a dance that was aggressively urban, slightly hostile and full of attitude. Perfect.

Germaine Ingram, Kariamu & Company, Eleone Dance Theatre Feb. 3, Wilma Theater